


A Bee Coda Coda

by sanguinity



Series: B. lemuria [4]
Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Bees, Episode: s01e23-24 The Woman/The Heroine, Gen, Schmoop, The Joan Watson Fanclub, speciation doesn't work that way, you named a bee after me!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 12:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/pseuds/sanguinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Speciation doesn't work that way, but his feelings about her do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bee Coda Coda

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Bee Coda](https://archiveofourown.org/works/847320) by [hophophop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hophophop/pseuds/hophophop). 



> for amindamazed, because [reasons](http://amindamazed.tumblr.com/post/53237419917) because [reasons](http://sanguinarysanguinity.tumblr.com/post/53198614711/amindamazed-coo-beastie-i-love-how-everybody). This [began as a comment-fic](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/3539952), but sometimes I have a need to write things _properly_.

Sherlock is fussing with his hives when Watson's smile catches his attention: pleased, private, and impossibly lovely. It is not her book that has pleased her so—her gaze is unfocused, watching something in her mind's eye—and he pauses to consider her further. Her glance settles on the second hive, her smile deepening, before she looks away across the city—

The memory is dim, buried in a weeks-old haze of painkillers and sleeplessness: _Allow me to introduce you to Euglossa watsonia._ He flinches. He would ask what he had been thinking, but crossing _Osmia_ and _Apis_ to yield _Euglossa?_ It doesn't deserve the appellation of _thought_. And over a _mellifera_ drone! Watson is still smiling to herself; he twists away while he calculates the ramifications. He must tell her. If he does not, he risks her referencing it in public and being laughed at for it. And that is not to be borne, not for his error.

"Sherlock?" she asks, concern in her voice. He turns; she is frowning at him. Her eyes flick to the second hive and back again, following his own nervous glance. He has become so open in his tells.

"Watson—" he begins. His hand drums against his thigh. He does not know how to break this to her.

"It's fine, Sherlock, I know." She looks down to her book. Embarrassment? No, her voice is relaxed: she is giving him privacy. "I realized a few hours later, you were loopy with sleep-deprivation." She is remembering something now, something he cannot find in his own memory. Apparently naming a fantastical bee after her was not the only ludicrous thing he did that day. "I should have realized at the time, of course, but it was an exhausting week for both of us." She turns the page. Prematurely, he notes, as she still had a half-page of text to read.

He grimaces. "I apologize. It was a ridiculous—"

"No," she corrects him. "It was lovely." She turns another page, and he twitches in irritation. She will have to turn those pages back in a moment; she is far too thorough in her habits to skip two and a half pages.

Sherlock draws a deep breath, then nods. "Just so, Watson." He turns back to what he was doing, giving her her own moment of privacy to— There, an irritated breath, and the whisper of two pages being turned back again. At least that much has been set right.

He would do again, of course: name a bee after her. Even now, in possession of his full senses and with some time to accustom himself to Irene's—Moriarty's—betrayal. Eight months, and already Watson has become a fixed point he steadies himself against.

But he would do it properly, not saying a word to her until the publication was in print, there in his hands and official. He would put it on her desk in front of her, perhaps with an apology that it had taken so long to make real, but here, finally, _E. watsonii_. (Or perhaps _O. watsonii_ or _A. watsonii_. He must research which genus has the best potential.) And then there will be that impossibly lovely smile again. But earned, this time.

...yes, he must work out which genus has the best potential.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [standingoutinmyfield](https://standingoutinmyfield.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/not-so-elementary/) for useful details.


End file.
